How would you rank the Fire Emblem Continents?

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, NekoKnight said:

I was responding to this comment.

That's not the comment you quoted though...I don't want to sound like argumentative or aggressive (I'm absolutely not), but I think you're back peddling there. Nevertheless, I stand by that statement, Tellius is a high fantasy world with its focus being on social and philosophical battles, while Jugdral is a low fantasy world with it's focus being on political conflict of noble houses. The elements Tellius uses to explore its focus are more fantastical in nature while Jugdral's focus is almost completely absent of any distinctly fantastical elements. That's why I think it's unfair to compare them. For Tellius' world building they added more elements that could expand upon it's focus of racism and order vs chaos (like the Serenes Massacre, Zunanma and Feral Ones) while to world build in Jugdral it requires elements that add to the nuance and depth of the factions involved (like basically the entirety of Thracia 776). They're trying to achieve very different things. 

1 hour ago, NekoKnight said:

 I'll concede that Tellius has more active magical elements in the plot. Both games are high fantasy, however, just by the basics of their settings.

So like I said here.

12 hours ago, Jotari said:

Compared to Radiant Dawn, yes. The key difference here is that dragon satan is a human child. If Jugdral was higher fantasy it would have ended with a fight against an actual dragon like most Fire Emblems tend to do. Low fantasy by definition is that there are only a scant few magical elements in the world and everything else is more or less normal. In Jugdral, you have holy blood and that's it (the actual gameplay magic being inconsequential to the plot. Elwind is basically just another type of sword). In Radiant Dawn you have other things peppering the world like Blood Pacts, teleport staves/warp powder (plot crucial as it allows Zelguis to be in two places at once), immortal profits, invincible armour and the rapture influencing the plot. Even if one disputes if Jugdral is strictly low fantasy, Telluis is certainly much higher on the fantasy spectrum.

I make a difference between aesthetic and narrative. Both series are the same in terms of aesthetic. You have dragon riders, pegasi, mages and healing staves (and in Radiant Dawn Laguz). These things are important for the whole experience the game presents, but they're not elements of the narrative. You could take all of these elements out of the games (or replace when it comes to the laguz) and it wouldn't change the narrative. If you want, one could say that the aesthetic of Jugdral is high fantasy and the narrative is low fantasy, while both the aesthetic and narrative of Radiant Dawn are both high fantasy (and even then the aesthetic of Radiant is much higher high fantasy than Jugdral, it being the only continent in the series completely devoid of manaketes).

Regardless of technical definitions, my main point is that their different stories means they're two very different worlds. When it came to a second installment of Radiant Dawn they choose to continue the plot and add more elements to it (or rather expand upon the elements they'd hinted at before as a sequel was planned already, although Hatari probably wasn't part of the original outline as I don't think there's any hint of that in Path of Radiance), while when Jugdral got a second installment they choose to take one small part of the world and give a "zoomed in" focus of it (so to speak). Thracia doesn't add any new elements to Jugdral, hell it doesn't even add much more in terms of plot, but it does still world build by showing more of the world in a closer light and giving a better and more nuanced view of the conflict taking place.

Of course, that's just my opinion. I can't really argue if someone looks at Thracia and says "no new stuff = no new world building." I think I've explained my view as comprehensively as I can. Maybe a good metaphor would be to say Tellius is like a sandbox (Wow! look at all this stuff it's a really cohesive world!) while Jugdral is like the tenth turn of an ongoing game of Chess (Cool! There are so many layers of thought and counter thought going on here!)

Edited January 7, 2019 by Jotari

[NekoKnight]

10 hours ago, Jotari said:

That's not the comment you quoted though...I don't want to sound like argumentative or aggressive (I'm absolutely not), but I think you're back peddling there.

I'm not backpedaling. I addressed it because your original argument mentioned fantastic racism for why Tellius is high fantasy, as if Jugdral doesn't have fantastic beasts of its own. My argument has always been that both settings contain enough magical elements to sit comfortably in the "high fantasy" category, even if Tellius has relatively more elements in the plot. And disregarding the high fantasy elements of Tellius, it also has  significant "low fantasy" based plot elements like the politics and scheming of normal humans. Magical and mundane exist in both stories.

I don't agree on all of your points, but you gave a thorough response, so I respect your opinion. I don't really feel like continuing the argument because I think we've settled on our own conclusions.

[god_ewan]

1. Tellius - I like the integration of laguz and the theme of racism.

2.  Elibe - I like the lore and how each nation is different. 

3. Magvel - I like the lore and the relationships between the nations.

4. Valentia - Only two nations but they are greatly defined and contrasting. 

5. Jugdral - Interesting lore and politics. 

6. Archenea - The nations are involved in the plot but not too fleshed out.

7. Fateslandia - It has potential but the writing just completely fails. 

8.  Ylisse - Nations felt kinda bland to me.

[Bagfisch]

1. Jugdral - I love Jugdral and it's political manouvering and holy (incest) eugenics and in terms of Locations it is more fleshed out than the other continents having different countries with different geography and unit compsition. Also I find Generation 1 to be the best story in the series which is supported by the actually existing backstory of the continent instead of ancient calamity few thousand years ago and/or dragons and something

2. Tellius - The fantasy racism and political dynamic of radiant dawn is what makes Tellius for me (even though the blood pact is still a pretty shite plot device). I think Tellius suceeds the best in giving the countries a distinct character which goes a little beyond good/bad/ally/neutral.

3.Elibe - Similar to Tellius the characterisation of the different countries gives Elibe some depth that makes it stand out altough FE7 somehow did a better job at that than FE6

4. Valentia - While lacking an interesting number of political entities the backstory and presentation of Zofia and Rigel make Valentia into an acceptable world

5. The Rest (Can't really rank them) - The other Continents in my opinion lack in backstory and politics although they do have redeeming factors. Such as Fateslandia having interesting subfactions and Archanea having a good empire vibe going.